Hello WCC!
Per tradition, I would like to address my Staff Survey Results. I always want to be transparent about the feedback I am receiving and shed some light upon things people might not see, or respond to areas that I need to improve on. First, each one of the graphs associated with my survey feedback can be found below. I will address each one individually.
- Expectations as Mod Chart:
Under this section I believe there are a few reasons for these responses, some of which were elaborated in comments that will be seen below:
- I am new in returning to the team, my contributions have yet to be seen outside of the Staff Team
- Personal bias impacting how someone is scoring me in this area
- This is currently a hard area to answer because of a lack of set grounds and systems on staff
I believe I am hitting all the marks I need to so far on the team and have handled all of the tasks I have been given, and am in the middle of many more. I am hoping to share these in the future as we get further along in the process of revamping Staff, and then the site. There were few comments that made me feel my current performance is not hitting these marks. I will further address that below.
- Social Activity:
This is for the most part what I expected. I am not sure how to be more active than I currently am socially in regards to the general site population given my constant Discord lurking, short of climbing in everyone's walls. Jokes aside, I think some of the outliers might come from a lack of social activity on the site. I want to take more time to be present on the site so people know I am around and available both on WCC itself and by extension the Discord.
- Roleplay Activity:
Roleplay activity is a bit of a mixed bag and I know everyone has different standards for activity but in general I am proud of where I am at. I think for the most part I have been on top of any time sensitive topics or those needing me as a High Rank. Given how busy my personal life can be at times and enjoyment in other hobbies, I am working to maintain a good balance between being active and taking time to relax so I don't burn out from all the many hats I wear. The biggest thing I plan to work on is recognizing my limits more. To be upfront, one thing that severely impacts me in this area is having an autoimmune disorder and condition that gives me chronic pain. Because of those two things, it is sometimes hard for me to gauge what I will be up for at any given time between pain and fluctuating energy levels. I have been working with my doctor to address these things, which will help me better be able to post when I say I am going to without having to delay things. Unfortunately, life happens at times! But I am going to do what I can to manage the factors I can control.
- Comments:
In this section I want to:
- Address the comments seen above
- Address comments that have not been shared above
First, the comments above - thank you to everyone who provided kind and honest feedback! I really appreciate everyone who took the time to give their input. Every one of you helped me get through the survey which can be a very stressful time for Staff Members and High Ranks. I want to specifically shout out the third comment for their ability to be honest and respectful in the survey. I hear you and I appreciate you and I want to continue down the path of doing things that benefit the site which includes hearing multiple voices and getting lots of input and feedback (and using it!).
There were two other comments I wanted to address, burn out and me answering help desk. I talked about burn out and time management above but also want to add here that I've been focusing on working on internal staff things a little more which isn't quite seen yet, and I have had big events the past couple weeks at work. These are two things that I think could attribute to it seeming like I am burning out, but despite having a few low energy days, I am not feeling that overall and hope to avoid that feeling in the long run like I mentioned above!
In regards to the help desk thing, I'd like to ask if the person who shared this is willing to reach out to me further (or another staff member if you'd feel more comfortable). It is never my intention to make anyone feel bad while responding to questions. I know there was one point in which I did word something improperly and was called out by another staff member that it came out differently than I intended. I reached out to the member who had asked the question, to apologize and explain I didn't have any bad intent. I want to make sure there are not other people feeling this way and prevent that from happening again. If I share a page or reference a section, my goal is to give additional resources because I know things can be hard to find right now, which I really want to help change in the future! If you are ever feeling like I said something ill-intended towards you, please let me know, so we can talk through it. I've found, personally, that has helped me better communicate with people and feel better when I've been in a position where I felt someone was treating me poorly.
Comments that I did not share above: there were four comments I chose not to share which involved what seemed to be either personal issues with me, or misunderstanding of circumstances. I want to ask that if you are one of those people, please reach out. It does not help to improve anything to dwell on past circumstances without talking about them and finding a productive way to move forward, especially in a space where respect is so important between members for maintaining a healthy community. I am always open to conversations, ideally personally, but also involving other staff members if preferred. I don't think it does anyone good to sit on bad feelings rather than working to resolve them and I would like to do everything I can to make sure that line of communication is open as needed.
I know it is highly likely people will not reach out, and that is entirely fine, but for that reason I would like to address below the content of a couple of those comments as it pertains to my last time on the site. I had briefly rejoined after stepping down with Stoatstar and leaving the staff team, before leaving again. This inclusion is not to make anyone feel bad for me, that is not the point at all, I would just like to clarify what had happened from my point of view because it seems there is misunderstanding or misinformation, which as a result has made me feel really badly and I would like to share more about what had happened.
A couple notes for the below:
- I did not intend to bring this up again and have made my peace with how things played out, stepping away was the best move for me at the time
- I do NOT under any circumstances want this to be taken as against anyone who was on staff at the time
- I am open to discussing this further with anyone who would like but would prefer not to as this is not something I would like to think about or dwell on
- TW: Mentions of Suicide, References to Eating Issues, Mental Health, Infidelity:
As some of you may know, I went through a divorce in the past couple of years. During my last time on staff, my relationship issues had gotten really bad. Despite working on them as best as I could through personal and couples therapy, my partner at the time had started constantly getting explosively angry with me no matter what I did (sometimes to the point of breaking things), constantly talked about wanting to commit suicide, was always berating me for things that happened, disappearing for hours at a time without talking to me, and every other day saying she wanted to leave me. This only worsened over time and was something I had opened up to the staff team about while still there (in small doses). The worst of it happened after I left the team.
While I was away from WCC, I had some former and current members of the site come to stay at my house. The night before the first person arrived, I found out my partner was speaking to someone she was not supposed to, who had caused issues in our relationship, and lied to me about it. It was agreed upon she would stay in a hotel while people were over. Later in the week, while everyone was still at my house, I met with her for couples therapy. It was that night I found out that she had been having an affair for months, which explained why she had been acting the way she had. The next day, she moved out, again, while I had all these people staying in my house. They were all wonderful and are the reason I was able to get through this.
For multiple weeks I was so sick with stress and anxiety that I barely ate and constantly vomited at home and at work. Needless to say, the process of divorce started pretty quickly. It was a couple months after this that I had begun to feel better and thought that maybe returning to the site to roleplay would be a good way for me to enjoy writing with friends again and move into a sense of normalcy. It was shortly after I returned that I realized my former partner was still on the WCC server. During the last few months of our relationship, she had a couple of times used things I said in the server as a reason to lash out at me, and given the fact we were in the process of a legal divorce, I asked staff to remove her because she had not been active for months.
My request was denied due to lack of text evidence, which I did not have because this happened in person. I did not want to or have the will to argue at this point and made staff aware that I was going to explain my reasoning to the site and then immediately leave for my own safety and comfort. I did not want to vanish without a trace because I care about the people here and did not want anyone who was unaware of the circumstances to feel like I had left without a word. This was not at any point an attempt to stir up drama.
I was feeling awful at this point and had mentioned it to those who had been around, since they had been my support system. The people who were there and those who knew about the circumstances chimed in on the server to validate what had happened, which is not something I had asked them to do. What resulted was a conversation of people publicly discussing whether or not I was right in wanting to have my former partner removed. When this happened, it made me sick to my stomach, and I had immediately left the server. I did not want to talk about it or interact and went offline for the rest of the day to deal with the resulting episode of reliving trauma. It is worth noting that after this, staff at the time did decide to remove her, and reached out to me personally. I made the decision to leave regardless given everything that happened.
Ultimately, I am glad that I left because after this I had found out my partner had also been lying to me about finances and using me to cover expenses for most of our relationship while hiding money. Being left to pay bills without any partner support also threw me further in debt after having to replace things she had taken from the house. During our divorce, she tried to lie about my spending, including calling visits to see my dying grandpa, needless vacations. It was all messy and awful but I am grateful that during that time, I was not sharing information that she could have access to, for my own safety.
With that, I conclude my lengthy staff survey response. I want to reiterate that I am open to conversation with anyone who would like to speak with me at any time, and will continue to do my best in striving to be a good member of the staff team for as long as I am on the site.
~ Ripped
